


Heartbeats in the Quiet

by screamingintosilence



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmastime has me feeling some type of way, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 21:31:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12944364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamingintosilence/pseuds/screamingintosilence
Summary: It was usually just a cold, but this felt like the flu.Future Fic One-Shot of our favorite couple being their worry-wart selves.Nancy would be an amazing doctor.





	Heartbeats in the Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be _way_ shorter than it ended up being, but still just a one shot of fun.  
>  Holidays put me in my feels.

**December 9, 1994**

Jane ‘El’ Wheeler (née Hopper) was worried. 

That wasn’t anything new, Mike liked to tease her about being such a worry wart over everything. He understood that it stemmed from her days in the lab, of always feeling the pressure to please, so even though he teased, he also reassured. Mike was her God send and she still thanked her lucky stars every morning that he found her in the woods.

But El was worried more than usual. Winter seemed to have come early this year and it felt like there weren’t enough layers or hot coffee and cocoa in the world to keep her from freezing. Even now as she sat bundle on their couch in their small one bedroom apartment with her favorite Christmas movie on and the biggest mug they owned filled to the brim with steaming hot Ovaltine clutched in her small hands, she was shivering.

She had even resorted to dragging their portable radiator from the bedroom out into the living area and putting it on the highest setting, something Mike was sure to be slightly annoyed at when he came home.

She had left her job as a speech therapist at the local elementary school early today, which worked out in her favor since she didn’t need to see anyone after noon on Fridays.

For the past few days she had been waking up to nausea and puking out whatever they had eaten the night before, which given the time of year wasn’t completely strange, but she usually got the flu around mid-January.

 _Probably this stupid weather_ , she thought bitterly, watching as George told Mary that he would give her the moon. El had always hated the cold, after everything she had experienced as a child, no one could blame her. But El adored Christmas. Their friends and family all laughed at her enthusiasm for the holiday, but they loved watching how giddy it made her. 

This of course is why catching the flu this early was causing her to be downright miserable. She was used to the occasional sniffles that she had because of the weather changing drastically, but the flu tended to put her out of commission for days, a feeling that she loathed.

Her head snapped to the door as she heard keys rattling from the outside. She reached out with her mind to quickly unlock and open the door to see a stunned Mike on the other side, his hand looking like it was just about to put the key into the door. 

He blinked in surprise as he saw his wife of 3 years curled up in the middle of their sofa with a blanket wrapped over her head and several others around her body, looking miserable as all get out.

“El, baby, are you ok? Why is it a sauna in here?” The heat of the room finally hit him as he quickly took off his outer layers all the way down to his undershirt as he stepped into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him. He had no clue how she wasn’t dying from heat stroke. Once he was untangled from his clothes he strode around the couch, hands reaching out for her face to see if her temperature was off.

She let out a shriek as his hands made contact with her skin, “Mike! They’re freezing! Stop!”

He quickly pulled his hands away and held them close to the radiator. He took notice of how high it was set before turning back to the shivering woman next to him. “El, sweetheart, are you feeling ok? You look miserable.”

His words triggered something in her as tears started pouring down her cheeks and sobs to break from her lips. Panic overtook the young man as he scrambled to think of what he had done to set her off.

“I’m ugly?” she whimpered. The logic part of her brain was trying to tell her to get a grip, that she was overreacting, but the emotional part was all out of wack.

“What?! Baby?! Why are you crying?!” Mike was cradling her face and wiping her tears away as best he could but she just kept on sobbing.

“Be-because George would have given Mary the moon, a-and then you came home and I’ve missed you so much, and then you put your freezing hands o-on me, and then you said I look mi-miserable which means you think I’m ugly! And I’ve been feeling like crap every morning, and my boobs h-hurt and my whole body hurts, and I think I’m getting the flu early this year w-which isn’t fair because I love Christmas!” her blubbering rant ended when her sobs became too much and all Mike could think to do was pulling his tiny wife, blankets and all, into his lap after setting down her mug on the coffee table.

“Baby, shhh, it’s ok. You’ve seen this movie a million times and haven’t cry at it in years,” her sobs seemed to only increase as she took his statement as him pointing out a flaw. “Shit, baby, I’m sorry! That came out wrong. But I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the entire universe, I just thought you were looking sick, which you just said you feel like you might be!” His hands were running up and down her back trying to calm her as best he could. “If you’re getting the flu, we can go to the doctor and get medicine! I’ll nurse you back to health as fast I can so we can still enjoy all our Christmas traditions. It’ll be ok, I promise.”

Her sobs had slowed, finally quieting, and her tears had ceased as she tucked herself into her favorite place, under his chin. “I'm just so exhausted and ready for this to be over. And I already called Dr. Denebrough’s office, they said they can't get me in until Monday,” he could hear the pout in her voice.

“We could go to Nancy. I'm sure she could squeeze us in,” Mike offered as El simply snorted in response, still wiping her damp cheeks. 

“Nancy is a ob-gyn, Mike. Besides, it's already 3:30, I doubt she's going to want us to come in this close to the practice closing.”

“El, it's Nancy were talking about, she loves you. Even more than she loves me! And besides, she'd be able to write you a prescription at least.” 

El let out a sigh but knew that when Mike was determined to help, he was like a dog with a bone. Plus, he was probably right, and it would be wonderful to get better and be back to her happy holiday-joy-infused self as soon as possible.

“Fine,” she conceded while rolling off Mike's lap and back onto the couch so he could call his sister.

“Hey Miss Dawn, it's Mike Wheeler... Yeah, we're doing good. Hey, is my sister free right now by chance? Ok great!” Mike knew he always had speed through the greeting with the elderly receptionist that worked at the practice Nancy was established at. He was put on hold for a few minutes while they tracked her down for him.

“Hey Nance! Yeah, yeah, everything is good, well with me at least... Woah! Calm down, she's ok, she's on the couch... Look, she's actually why I'm calling... What? No! We talked about this, Nance,” he said the last part under his breath so El couldn't hear over the sounds of _It's A Wonderful Life_.

Nancy had freaked on the other end asking if El was pregnant, which was something that was actually a very hard spot for the couple. They had found out about three years ago that the chance of El ever getting pregnant were less than 0.01% because of what she had endured in the lab.

Dr. Brenner had been honest and upfront about it, refusing to sugar coat any of it, but none of it would have made the facts hurt any less.

The time right after had been the worst point their relationship had ever reached. After going through the counseling, however, they had become stronger than ever before. They had even started tossing around the idea of maybe adoption or fostering within the last few months.

“Look, El’s just feeling sick and we want to see if it's the flu or maybe something else because she's been feeling pretty crappy and our usually family doctor can't get her in till Monday... You're free?.. And you really don't mind?.. Great, you're the best, sis... Yeah, yeah, I'm not repeating that. See you in a bit.”

As he hung up the phone, he had already layering all his clothes back on and checking on his wife who was not too happy about having to leave their cozy apartment for the bitter Indiana weather. He handed her her boots and held her pile of blankets that she deemed mandatory to bring along as she tied up the strings.

Once they were piled into the car, El wrapped in blankets with the car’s heat on high and vents pointing all at her, they drove quickly to Nancy’s practice on the edge of South Bend. Thankfully for them they only lived a short 20 minutes away instead of the hour that Hawkins was.

They bustled inside with a quick “Hello” to Dawn as Nancy ushered them back into an examine room, a nurse quickly following behind.

“Ok, El, just to make sure we hit all our bases here, I’m just going to have to go through the usual routine,” Nancy told the younger woman as the nurse stood by with a clipboard, poised to take down all the stats. El agreed, hoping they could figure out if it really was the flu or hopefully something a lot less serious to calm her incessantly worrying mind.

So after all the height, weight, blood pressure, and temperature taking, El was already feeling even more tired than she had started out.

“So, you say that you’re feeling cold? Even with a heater and blankets?” Nancy was looking down at the clipboard while scribbling notes once the nurse had left. El nodded, words feeling like too much work. “That’s a little odd. I can’t fully rule out the flu quite yet, but you’re not showing any signs of a fever or cold. In fact, your body temperature is quite literally on the dot of normal.” Nancy’s eyes were slightly concerned, wishing she could find an easy solution for her sister-in-law. “I’d like to do a blood test, if you are ok with it. I know it’s not your favorite,” she stroked El’s arm as her eyes grew a bit panicked at the thought, “but it’ll be by far the most accurate way without getting too intrusive to try and see what might be wrong.”

When El finally conceded, squeezing all feeling out of Mike’s hand, Nancy called out to Jackie, the nurse, to bring in the blood test kit. When all was said and done, with an averted panic attack thanks to Mike, Nancy made sure to put a special rush request on the results to in the lab.

“It usually takes two hours for the results to come back, but I’m hoping with how slow today has been that maybe they’ll be able to get it done sooner,” Nancy wrote some more notes on the sheets before looking up to El biting her bottom lip. Mike was staring at his wife in worry, wishing there was something, _anything_ to make her feel ok.

“What have you been feeling lately? Tell me exactly, don’t leave anything out,” Nancy was hoping that maybe she would be able to narrow down what could possibly be affecting one of her favorite people.

“Well,” El glanced at Mike who nodded reassuringly. “I’ve been waking up feeling nauseous for what feels like a few weeks now, but have only started throwing up this past week. And it hasn’t just been in the morning, sometimes my lunch smells weird which makes me nauseous. I’m always so tired and my body is sore, which might be from the vomiting but I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My boobs especially, but it’s probably from my period coming. They’re always super tender,” El could see all the concern clouding Mike’s eyes since she hadn’t been telling him everything. 

“And she’s been feeling like she’s freezing,” Mike added on for good measure.

Once Nancy had written it all down, she looked back over her notes, and then leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. She was wary of asking what she wanted to ask, but in her line of work, she felt it was something she needed to to cover all her bases.

“El, sweetheart,” she started out gently. “Just to check all my boxes, I need to ask. When did you have your last period?”

El was startled at the question since Nancy knew about her condition. But as El thought about it more, she couldn’t think of writing on the calendar for the month of November when it started. She was meticulous about making sure to note it down, ever since she had started at 14 and Joyce told her to. Mike would make sure, but they had gotten so busy after Halloween this year with all the festivities, decorating, and prep for Thanksgiving and Christmas, she hadn’t even thought about it.

She worriedly looked to Mike to see if maybe he remembered, but he was slowly shaking his head, eyes wide as he looked back at her.

“I-I can’t, I can’t remember,” her worry was increasing tenfold, hoping desperately that wouldn’t mean that there was something more serious going on. “It might, it might have been the end of September. That’s when I remember for sure having it.”

Nancy sat thinking seriously for a few minutes, trying to consider everything. She knew how devastating the news of her brother and the love of his life being very unlikely to conceive was to them, especially taking into consideration of El’s and Mike’s love of kids. She really didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but she was desperately hoping for them. 

“You know what? How about you guys go for dinner? I want to look through some stuff and it will give me enough time for your blood test results to come back,” Nancy suggested. She knew that El’s symptoms could actually apply to quite a few different things, especially her feeling cold being thrown into the loop, and wanted enough time to look through the medical books she kept in her office as well as be able to consult the results to be sure.

Mike and El were uneasy at the suggestion with so much uncertainty up in the air, but eventually they agreed and went on their way to a cafe just down the road from Nancy’s office, Mike doing his best to reassure his wife who he knew was internalizing everything.

Nancy was spending her time running through her books, not being able to place every single symptom of El’s into one thing. An hour since sending the blood work to the lab, a lab tech appeared at her door, a file folder in his hands.

Nancy quickly glanced over the sheet, her eyes growing wider as what it was trying to tell her sunk in, tears overtaking her as the reality of the news she was going to have to deliver hit her. She was just drying her eyes as Jackie stuck her head in to let the young ob-gyn know that her brother and sister-in-law had returned. 

“Thanks Jackie. Can you show them into the exam room? Oh, and one more thing,” Jackie nodded in response to Nancy’s request as Nancy finished pulling herself together and made sure she had everything in order before she had to give them the life changing news.

She made her way back to the room were El and Mike were waiting for her. The minute she entered their eyes snapped to her, begging her to tell them good news. She gave a tight, small smile as she asked El to lay on the exam table.

“So I have the results from the blood test back-”

“And?” Mike demanded, cutting her off.

She held her hand up to keep him from attacking her, “And there is one last test, or rather check, I would like to do to just to be one hundred percent sure. Given, it might actually not show me anything this early in your condition,” El ears perked at ‘condition’ as every worst case scenario shot through her mind.

“Whatever you have to do, do it. I need to know,” El cut of any more explanation Nancy might have continued to give as Mike gripped her hand hard.

“If you wouldn’t mind unbuttoning your pants and pulling your shirt up a bit,” Nancy asked as she wheeled over the machine that had a small screen with keyboard and wand that had already been prepped for her by Jackie.

Mike’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline at his sister’s request as he also took in the machine. “Why, Nance? And isn’t that an ultrasound machine?”

“Well, yes. But ultrasound machines can be used for a great many things, not just to check if you’re pregnant,” she tried reassuring the young couple. “It’s less radiation and time than an x-ray, plus it’ll give me a chance to search for what I’m looking for.” Mike quirked an eyebrow at her but her face gave nothing away.

El, who was lying prone at an angle on the table, had already complied with Nancy’s request, willing to do anything her sister-in-law asked of her, as long as they could find out what was wrong.

“I’ll need to spread this gel so that the wand can pick up a picture. It will be cold, is that ok?” Nancy looked at her to make sure she had her consent and El nodded back. After the sharp intake of breath at first contact, Mike wrapped his arms around his love the best he could while staying out of the way.

 _The whole damn room is cold_ , he thought bitterly, hoping this wouldn’t take too long. His hands covered El’s as she reached up for them, trying to keep her as warm as possible.

Nancy had been fiddling around with the wand for a few minutes, slowly swiping it slowly across El’s abdomen by her pant line. After clicking a few buttons here and there, she donned a pair of headphones. At Mike’s questioning gaze Nancy gave a stern, “I just need you to trust me and let me do my job.”

After another minute or so, she slipped them off, giving the two people in front of her a small smile. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I think I first need to show you.”

Both Mike and El looked at her and each other completely lost as to what Nancy was trying to tell them. In their confusion, Nancy had replaced the wand to a certain area of El’s stomach before flipping a switch on the ultrasound machine, letting a loud whooshing sound flood the room.

“What is that?” bewilderment still prevailing through Mike. Nancy just smiled and turned the screen to them, pointing at a miniscule dot on the screen.

“It’s a heartbeat,” her smile growing wider as their confusion only grew.

“But my heart’s up here,” El was holding her hand over her chest.

Nancy moved the wand from El’s lower belly to over her heart, the sound changing to a low, steady heartbeat, slower than before. “That’s actually your heartbeat, El. This,” she moved the wand back to its original position, the swooshing, galloping sound playing through the speakers once more, “is a different heartbeat.”

As the reality of what she was saying to them finally seemed to sink in, El’s hand tightened on Mike’s, cutting off circulation. Mike, however, didn’t even register the feeling as his whole body seemed numbed, the shock overriding his nervous system.

“It’s still really early, you’re looking at about 10 weeks or so, so it’s imperative that you listen to your body and be careful about this. The first trimester is usually the highest chance of a miscarriage, but with you El, I’d be careful the whole time. I would say your coldness might have something to do with all your heat being pulled to your core to keep this little one safe and warm. It is a bit unusual, so I would definitely check in with Dr. Brenner soon, but congratulations! You guys are going to have a baby!” Nancy couldn’t contain the giant smile and small squeal of excitement over the thought of these two deserving souls getting something they had hung up as being impossible.

“Oh my god,” Mike finally managed to choke out just as sobs started coming from El’s direction. As his eyes turned to her, his heart felt like it was going to explode as massive amounts of fear and panic overtook him at his wife’s tears. He folded her into his arms, “Baby, it’s going to be ok. We’ll figure it out, we’ll make sure we’re safe. Everything is going to be ok.”

“I c-can’t believe it!” she was wailing. And while she knew that she should probably calm down to make sure her husband knew that she wasn’t upset, all her brain could think of was that there was a precious life growing inside of her and that it was made up of her _and_ Mike.

Knowing there was no way for her to get words of reassurance out, she lifted her lips to Mike’s as she threaded her fingers through his inky locks, pouring everything she was feeling into the kiss.

When they finally pulled apart, Mike rested his forehead on hers, eyes staring into her chocolate browns, thumbs wiping away her tear tracks. “You’re absolutely amazing, baby. I love you so much, Ellie. We’ll make sure we do everything right and that we’re careful to make sure this little one is safe and warm and happy,” one of his hands dropped to stroke her lower belly which was still covered in the gel; he could care less.

Tears still in her eyes, she gripped him fiercely, “Thank you, Mike. Thank you for saving me and continue to save me. Thank you for being my miracle.”

“Thank you for being mine.”

As they drove home that night, Mike going well under the speed limit and El gave a small eyeroll, they thought back to everything they had gone through and ahead to everything they were about to go through. They knew it was going to be a very difficult journey and that no matter what they did or how they prepared, there would be something unexpected.

In this moment, however, with all the doubts and worries, they felt the one thing they didn’t realize they hadn’t felt for a while now... _Hope._

**Author's Note:**

> IM SORRY THIS ISNT THE NEXT CHAPTER OF IDWYLABF, I'm working on it...


End file.
